Tag Archives: Maricopa County

A prominent national advocacy group for Latinos has joined a call for the self-proclaimed "America's toughest sheriff" to resign from office amid a wide range of civil rights violations, botched sex crimes investigations and other alleged abuses.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose office has been accused of a wide range of civil rights violations, faces a Wednesday deadline to say whether his agency will hold discussions with federal officials about ways to correct the alleged violations.

Attorneys seeking the disbarment of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and one of his deputies say in written closing arguments filed today that no other penalty for the former prosecutors will repair the damage they caused.

“About a year after Thomas assumed office as County Attorney, it became clear that he had lost all objectivity about his role as a lawyer and as County Attorney,” Gleason wrote.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery today joined the chorus of Republicans questioning the political motives of the U.S. Department of Justice and its release of findings that the Sheriff’s Office has followed a practice of racial profiling.

Montgomery also said he’s also going to ask the federal government to reinstate a program it stripped from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Thursday that allows detention officers to check the immigration status of people who are getting processed into jail.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has always been fond of saying he’s accountable only to the voters.

But the U.S. Department of Justice took the first steps Dec. 15 toward making Arpaio answer to the federal government after unveiling the results of a civil rights probe that one investigator described as “the most egregious racial profiling in the United States.”